September 2, 2016

September 2, 2016 

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

This is my sixth response to “Verbal behavior in clinical context: behavior analysis methodological contributions” by Zamignani and Meyer (2007). The authors state “The categories Information and Feedback do not name a behavior or a relationship between listener and speaker, but, in its substantive form, they give a broad denomination of a purely linguistic product, without context” (p. 76). It is unlikely these disembodied “products of behavior” are overcome by “a greater specification of the criteria for the definition of the categories of a system.” I agree.

Staying true to what actually happens during the therapist-client interaction requires from the therapists who describe such events to their clients not to go overboard on too much terminology. “An excess of specification would make the identification of interaction standards more difficult, because of the excessive dispersion of results.”

The SVB/NVB distinction is such a powerful therapeutic tool as it is so easy to grasp. To “maintain the coherence and the internal validity of the categories’ system: (1) the categories constructed must be exhaustive and mutually exclusive; (2) all the behavior that has been observed and registered must be classified, regardless of the number of events that are categorized in each class; (3) there must be coherence among the categories in the criteria chosen for the classification and in the degree of specificity adopted for the class of events.”

1) SVB and NVB are mutually exclusive; 2) SVB and NVB capture the whole range of human emotion; 3) SVB and NVB are physiological phenomena, which, once discriminated create understanding, clarity and coherence. We need to be able to quantify “when it begins and when it finishes.” When SVB begins, NVB ends and when NVB begins, SVB ends. Bardin (1977) called such a unit “a register unit.” By listening to ourselves while we speak we learn to increase SVB and decrease NVB.

September 1, 2016

September 1, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

This is my fifth response to “Verbal behavior in clinical context: behavior analysis methodological contributions” by Zamignani and Meyer (2007). The behavioral events I call SVB and NVB fit with Danna’s and Matos’s (1999) definition of “an event in a given category” as they must: “(1) be objective, clear and precise; (2) be expressed in a direct and affirmative manner; (3) include only elements that are pertinent to it; (4) be explicit and complete” (p. 134).”

All my students and therapy clients discriminate SVB and NVB. SVB describes that the speaker’s sound is experienced by the listener as an appetitive stimulus, but NVB describes the speaker’s voice is experienced by the listener as an aversive stimulus. The listener’s subjective experience determines if the speaker has SVB or NVB.

Only the listener can say if the speaker has SVB or NVB. Actually, it is only the listener who can become the speaker who is able to say to the speaker whether he or she has SVB or NVB. If the listener cannot really become the speaker, as is often the case in NVB, he or she cannot say to this speaker whether he or she experiences SVB or NVB.

The listener, who cannot become a speaker, who is not listened to as a speaker, who is not allowed to become a speaker, who is ignored as a speaker, will experience NVB private speech. Also, the speaker who cannot become the listener will be experiencing NVB private speech.

In the absence of turn-taking the speaker and the listener will both engage in NVB, but as turn-taking increases their SVB will increase. Although the subjective experience of the listener determines if the speaker is having SVB or NVB, the definition of SVB and NVB is neither “circular” nor “subjective.“ In other words, communicators experience each other’s voice subjectively in similar ways.

The “low agreement among judges” that is found in many studies was not due to the “imprecision of description,” but because these judges were prevented from judging based on their own subjective experience. SVB refers to the objectivity which will be found in our subjectivity.   

August 31, 2016

August 31, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

This is my fourth response to “Verbal behavior in clinical context: behavior analysis methodological contributions” by Zamignani and Meyer (2007). It is as simple as this: Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) is made possible by a non-punitive audience, but Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) is a function of a punitive audience. Remarkably, nobody has ever pointed this out.

“Among the many agreement scores existent, the majority of the Brazilian studies of therapeutic interaction have used the percentage of agreement (division between the number of agreements and the sum of the total of agreements + disagreements x 100).” When we agree that we have SVB, but when we disagree, we have NVB and don't agree that we have NVB.  

When we agree, do we really agree or do we as we say agree to disagree? Presumably, agreeing to disagree is SVB, but it is not true. It never is. Word-games such as these obfuscate the fact that we either agree or disagree. In therapy, it becomes emphatically clear if we agree or not.

This brings us to the issue of validity. “Validity is understood as evidence accumulation that the instrument measures what it is supposed to represent, in a precise and appropriate way (Ary & Suen, 1989; Kazdin, 2002; Richardson, 1999).” If the therapist is really listening to the client, that therapist must also be listening to him or herself.

The therapist who listens to him or herself while he or she speaks produces SVB and elicits SVB in the client, who then also listens to him or herself. As long as the client has problems, he or she will produce NVB.

Although the therapist acknowledges this, he or she wastes no time engaging in NVB with the client. By teaching the client to discriminate between SVB and NVB, NVB is used as a stepping stone for SVB.

NVB is to be considered the problem behavior, which must be replaced by SVB. Improvement of the client is determined by an increase of SVB. “It is important to consider that the bigger the number of validity evidences and of the observation instrument, it is bigger the probability that it be accepted as a representative measure of the phenomenon being studied.”

August 30, 2016

August 30, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

This is my third response to “Verbal behavior in clinical context: behavior analysis methodological contributions” by Zamignani and Meyer (2007). Without the distinction between SVB and NVB researchers will continue to miss out on what is essential to human interaction: how we affect each other with the sound of our voice.

“Baptistussi (2001), Garcia (2001), Vermes (2000) and Zamignani

(2001) reported difficulties in the categorization and identification of the studied phenomenons when the data obtained were exclusively

verbal-vocal, which would have limited the extent of their studies.”

The inclusion of different categories besides our verbal-vocal behavior, such as “non-vocal verbal responses and motor responses correlated to emotional responses” cannot get to the heart of the “psychiatric problems” or “the therapeutic bond” as they don’t focus anyone’s attention on auditory stimulation which makes the conversation between the therapist and the client possible.

Fiorini (1995), who wished “to include non-vocal aspects,” stated that “a categorization system should present a multidimensional aspect.” The SVB/NVB distinction is exactly such an inclusive categorization system. Moreover, the distinction increases the reliability of the researcher, as he or she listens to him or herself while he or she speaks.

By listening to him or herself while he or she speaks, the behavioral analyst is able to discriminate every time the conversation switches from SVB to NVB and from NVB to SVB. “The objective is to identify possible necessities of additional training of observers or improvement of register procedures,” in other words, the ears of the researcher must become a more precise measurement instrument.

“The matter of reliability refers to the consistence or stability of the observation data obtained by means of an instrument.” There is high interrater-reliability among those who have become familiar with the SVB/NVB distinction; people agree SVB is more intelligent than NVB. 

August 29, 2016

August 29, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

This is my second response to “Verbal behavior in clinical context: behavior analysis methodological contributions” by Zamignani and Meyer (2007). Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) are real phenomena that compose this universe. These response classes are not “some type interpretation a priori.”

When these authors refer to the vocal verbal behavior of the therapist and the client, they mention the “description of events”, “orientation”, “inference” and “approval”, but they don’t consider the important fact that the sound of the speaker’s voice immediately induces either a positive or a negative affect in the listener.

These authors seek to analyze “important processes of clinical interaction” such as “the therapist’s decision making  (Margotto, 1998), the consequences supplied by the therapist to the client’s actions (Almásy, 2004; Silva, 2001) orientation and counseling given by the therapist (Donadone, 2004; Meyer & Donadone, 2002; Zamignani & Andery, 2005), the management of feelings and emotions (Almásy, 2004; Brandão, 2003; Vermes, 2000) and of different clinical complaints during the session (Barbosa, 2001; Yano, 2003; Zamignani & Andery, 2005), among many others.”

It is clear, however, that these authors didn’t investigate anything else than “criteria of content, or theme.”  Even Garcia (2007), who “studied the therapist’s behaviors related to the non-punitive audience and avoidance-blocking, respectively, and their possible effect on the client’s responses,” didn’t acknowledge that such behaviors can be analyzed in terms of how the listener experiences the speaker’s voice.

“The increase or decrease of a variety of themes” can be analyzed as instances of SVB and NVB in the conversation between the therapist and the client. Such an analysis would be both exciting and pragmatic.